


Sundrop Flower Princess-

by TrashMachine



Series: Don't get your thoughts and actions possessed by the disney demon [3]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Moon Powers Varian (Disney), Zhan Tiri lays down some 'mad truths', i think/hope this is the last one but, id apologise for cluttering the tag but whatever man, is that the right tag for this, probably not, which are kinda more like 'emotionally cluttered truths'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 02:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19219324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashMachine/pseuds/TrashMachine
Summary: It's only stone, it's only magic, it's only thoughts, it's only- you're only crying, you're only bleeding, you're only dying, you're only-(Varian knows something is happening but he also knows it's happening too much.)





	Sundrop Flower Princess-

“-Rapunzel!”

Silence in his ears but for the ringing. Blindness in his eyes but for the fuzzy darkness. His mouth moves but he is not the one speaking. Did he call for her or was it him?

Was it both of them?

He gasps for air, nails scratching at dead grass. He’s sure his eyes are rolled into the back of his head and it hurts to breathe. His vision is blurry and he feels like he’s bleeding. Is he bleeding? His fingers feel weird and he’s certain he’s crying. He writhes in his mind and for once, he does the same outside of it. Something is wrong. 

“Varian!” 

He knows that voice. He hears her gasp, and he knows her, but he doesn’t know why the hair around him is black. It feels tight, and he can’t say he’s ever had it wrapped around him. But the dark colour is fading and it doesn’t hurt anymore. Or maybe it does, but he’s too numb to recognise it. It happened before, once, with a chemical reaction. Potassium had been hard to get, and he hand expect it to react to his bare skin. He supposed that was the reason his father insisted on him wearing gloves.

Ah. His father.

“Ra-pun-zel?” He wheezes, croaks, confused. His head is lifted by delicate and gentle hands, and he feels so tired but he can see her face in front of his and he hurts. His head feels heavy and off balance, and his teeth feel like they’re too big for his mouth which is weird because he thought they were big before but they never felt like this.

“Varian, oh my gosh, are you ok?” She’s afraid but concerned, and he can hear it in her voice. There’s the sound of metal on rock and there’s a soft sound of someone talking, muffled, and difficult to understand. In fact, he doesn’t. Who else is here? Is this real?

“Ra-punzel?” He says again, because apparently he can’t say anything else. 

There’s voices around them but not the one he knows is inside his head. He realises he shouldn’t be awake, the beast sent him to ‘rest’ and said he would wake him if it was important. This doesn’t feel important. It’s just Rapunzel- the princess, the flower- the sun drop. He searches for him, eyes closed and feeling loose and detached from everything around him, and when he finds him he screams. He feels like ice and thorns and he scrapes at his or their eyelids and pulls Varian out of the way to be in charge again. He’s furious, and Varian rushes to his own defence.

“I didn’t mean to wake up,” he croaks, and Rapunzel drops him, in shock or something else he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care because it hurts and it hurts him and he just wants to be asleep again. “I’m sorry I- I’m sorry I didn’t mean to wake up, please- please don’t go back on our deal, please.”

Rapunzel gasps, and the beast possessing him snarls wordlessly as he forces them to his feet. He’s unsteady, and angry, maybe angrier than Varian has ever seen anyone. No one has been this angry before, not even at him. Varian chokes back a sob, and tries again.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear, I swear I didn’t.”

“I know,” says the beast, running a clawed hand through his or maybe their hair. “I know you didn’t. I would have known if you’d planned this.”

Varian relaxes, but he’s not tired again, and the beast sighs. 

“I cannot believe this.”

“I’m sorry.” Varian apologises, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Don’t be. More than anything else, I’m surprised that you were right.”

Everyone goes quiet, and Varian curls in on himself and shuts the outside world out. He doesn’t want to hear this, he already knew, but he had hoped somehow it wasn’t the truth. The beast laughs, and relaxes lopsidedly. 

“Imagine. You told me to lie to you, but I had no idea. I thought no one would be right to come to me with such desperation. But they were never going to help you. They never even thought of you. They only ever considered themselves, and then they used you. They lied to you.”

He laughs again, but it’s mixed with Varian’s tears. 

“I know,” he whispers, oddly hoarse. “I know they did. I know.”

“No!” Rapunzel cries, because of course she thinks she’s innocent in this. 

“The storm passed and they never even thought to seek you out. They let people assume you were a villain long before you became one.”

“I know.” He says because he doesn’t want to hear anymore.

Rapunzel says nothing. Because she can’t say the statement is wrong. The beast laughs, and moves oddly with their body for reasons Varian isn’t aware of but can’t bring himself to worry or care. His body is forfeit. It was the beasts the moment Rapunzel broke her promise.

He slips away idly behind eyelids he wishes he could force shut.

“You did this to him,” the beast coos. “You forced him to do this, to make this deal. You’ve killed him!”

“No!” Rapunzel backs away, and somewhere off to the side someone else cries out for her.

“Yes! Yes you did! You killed him, like how you killed Gothel! Like how you’ll destroy everything around you, all that you love! You turned him away from you!” The beast laughs, ecstatic. Varian doesn’t care. “You didn’t help him when he needed you, your own indecisiveness responsible for your downfall!”

“I didn’t kill her! And he’s not dead!” She sobs, and Varian feels a sick sense of satisfaction from it. “I can still save him!”

“Save him?” The beast sounds like this is the best joke he’s ever heard. Varian agrees. “This was his choice! He was desperate for his father, for comfort! Do you know how his mind swirls? Do you know what he thinks?”

Rapunzel falls silent. She looks upset. Varian knows its because she doesn’t know, but he knows what he thinks, of her, of the kingdom and all associated parties. What he thinks of the king.

“Oh, that’s a lovely idea, Alchemist.” Wait, he didn’t say tell her- just that she didn’t know. “Oh yes, I know. But why not tell her?” It’s not really his choice. “I suppose not. Would you like to know, Sundrop?”

She doesn’t say anything, but her face reveals her curiosity. It hurts her, Varian knows, but she has to know. He knows because he does too. The beast soothes his unsettled thoughts, and forms a chair of the rocks. He lounges their body over them, and uncaringly begins.

“Are you aware of the Alchemist’s people, Sundrop? They don’t like him very much. Too much change, too much magic and ‘sciences’. Too adventurous. They thought he was dangerous, and if his father had not been their leader, they likely would have thrown him to the wolves by now. Quite literally, I assume by the sour note that thought is tainted with.”

They’d never done it before. But he wouldn’t put it past them to make an exception, given how much they despised him and his experiments. 

The beast continues.

“Of course, he only wanted to help. Creating materials to build with, to have hot running water in all houses, to be cleaner and safer. But no advancement comes without danger, and they weren’t willing to accept a better existence for such a low and petty price.”

No one ever got hurt. It wasn’t fair. He was the only one who ever got hurt.

“And then along comes you. New and full of ideas and inventions and for some reason, everyone _loves_ you. But not Varian, no, never Varian. He can accept this, you’re the princess, you have more charisma, whatever it is, everyone loves you. You have everyone at your beck and call.”

It makes him feel guilty, feeling so angry about it. But it’s not fair. It’s never fair. No one got hurt. Why did she get a pass where he never would? Her noble blood? Her ‘magical’ hair? 

“And then the rocks come! And he trusts you to take care of them. And they aren’t taken care of. But he understands, he doesn’t know how you’d take care of them either. People are driven from their homes. Houses are torn up from their foundations. Animals, people, everyone is threatened. It’s gotten worse- so so so much worse -but no one acts. He traps his father in his desperation, and you turn him away, he’s desperate to free his father and to save his home. No one trusts him because of a lie that he attacked you so he is forced to become a criminal.”

it hurt, it hurt so bad that they wouldn’t trust him, so the cookies- the serum, he had no choice he had to do something, anything. The beast soothes him through his mind, but it doesn’t stop Varian from crying.

Rapunzel doesn’t look much better herself.

“So he steals the sundrop and it doesn’t work. Nothing he does works, he’s so tired, and so angry. He knows you won’t come willingly. He knows you won’t help him. So he has to make you come. And even then it’s no promise that you’ll help so he has to make sure you have the same at stake that he does.”

The beast sighs, shaking his head as if this was a silly little story. Varian supposes it is, in a way. A story of a sad and stupid little boy who just wanted his father back.

“You wanted his praise too.” the beast reminds him, and Varian has to give him that. 

Rapunzel shakes in her spot on the floor, fingers running through her loose hair as if somehow she can fix this as easily. “I-I didn’t cause all that I- it’s not my fault! I didn’t make him do any of this!”

“He just wanted to help.” The beast says, coyly. As if that explains everything.

“But it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault people reacted that way! It’s not my fault the rocks came, and it’s not my fault I could’t do anything about it!”

The beast actually takes pause at this. Then smiles, mouth too wide and teeth too big. “But… you’re the reason the rocks came. You’re the sundrop. The rocks want you. And had you just touched them a second time they could have calmed, shown you the way.”

Horror dawns on her face. She looks at her hands, now torn from her hair like they’ve betrayed her. 

Perhaps, in a way, they have.

“But that doesn’t really matter.”

Even Varian takes pause at that. He knows his pathetic little sob story doesn’t mean a thing. But what was the point of saying so?

“Because,” the beast smiles somehow wider. “All this time, we’ve been moving. You haven’t realised it but we have. We’ve been moving to what’s been calling all three of us this whole time.”

“Three of us?” Rapunzel asks, softly, and Varian wishes he could voice the same opinion. The beast nods.

“I do have to question that you never wondered,” he hums, and the walls of stone and vines around them fall. There’s something next to him and it glows bright blue and the pulses of light that he can only just see call for him. “You have strange hair- but no one else does. Why, upon discovery of other magical items, did you never question the one person with an unusual stripe?”

The beast pulls back, and Varian blinks. He can’t think. It’s singing, it’s calling, it begs for him. Please, please you’re our missing piece come to us come back to us you were stolen from us we felt you there you were so close why did you put a barrier between us-

He doesn’t even realise he’s clasped his hand around the glowing stone until he’s screaming in agony.

He hears someone call for him.

He blacks out.


End file.
